Never Give Up
by Cassandra Mulder
Summary: The events after This is Not Happening.


Title: Never Give Up   
  
Author: Cassandra Mulder   
  
E-mail: dana_mulder32@yahoo.com   
  
Rating: PG   
  
Spoilers: "This is Not Happening"   
  
Classification: Scully angst   
  
Disclaimer: I don't own the X-Files. Do you think this season would've happened the way it did if I did?! LOL But Chris Carter rather made up for it in the end, I guess. Anyway, it all belongs to Chris Carter, surfer dude, 1013 Productions, and 20th Century FOX. I'm just borrowing them for my own amusement, and no infringement is intended.   
  
Summary: The events after the end of "This is Not Happening".   
  
Written: June 3-4, 2001   
  
Author's Notes: This was purely a sudden burst of inspiration, and I know we're way past this point now, but I felt I wanted to do something based around Scully and what happened after she fell to her knees in grief. I know, I'm a fun gal, huh? So this is basically the moments after that.   
  
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"THIS IS NOT HAPPENING!!!!!!!!!!!NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Scully cried from the depths of her very soul. There, on her knees, in that cabin, her life had just completely fallen apart. Maybe even ended.   
  
Sobs shook her, shook her body so hard that she could barely breathe. She gasped, gasped for precious, painful air to reach her heaving lungs. But it would barely come. She had just run so far, trying to find him. Trying to find the man that could help Mulder, that could make the world right again. But he was gone. They had taken him. The same ones that had taken Mulder, that had killed him, had now also taken his only chance to live again.   
  
Scully sat back on her heels as the desperate sobs racked her body. She hadn't cried this hard when they'd taken him, hadn't cried this hard the whole time he'd been gone. But that was because she'd had hope. And now that hope was as dead as her partner, the reason she'd been hanging on so long.   
  
The others finally found her several minutes later, but she was sobbing and shaking as before. Neither Skinner nor Doggett could calm her, no matter how they clumsily tried. They both knew how much he meant to Scully, there was really nothing they could do. There was nothing anyone could do, and if it wasn't for the life slowly growing inside of her, she would have flung herself down next to Mulder and wished to die.   
  
Breathing more evenly now, they led her out of the tiny cabin, but she was still crying softly. Usually her reactions to trauma came later, but this. . . This was instant, almost life-sucking in it's overwhelming power. Surreal didn't even begin to describe her current situation.   
  
She asked Skinner quietly to take her to Mulder. He reluctantly agreed as they moved deeper through the forest, to the little clearing where his lifeless body still lay. When they finally reached him, Scully just stood there for one silent moment, everyone around her wondering what she was going to do. Would she break down again? Become hysterical? They all watched her face to gauge her reaction, but there was nothing there. Just emptiness and a few tears.   
  
Then slowly, she knelt down beside the man that had made her laugh, made her cry, made her angry, and made her whole. She gently ran a hand over his cold cheek, tears still streaming steadily down her face, and adjusted the haphazardly placed jacket that someone had placed over his naked body. She arranged it as best she could, so that all its length and width were fully utilized, the mechanical motions of a woman bereft.   
  
She went from kneeling to sitting when a pain so acute, so searing that she could barely breathe went through her entire body. She gasped, and Skinner started towards her, but she held out a hand to stop him. It wasn't the baby. She was sure it was her heart. It was as if it was being ripped right from her body. So she sat there on the dewy grass, staring at the once beautiful face of her once beautiful partner. He'd been so alive the last time she'd seen him, so stunning in his presence, that she wondered how this could be him. How it could be that the only person who had meant anything, who had been there for her in the last eight years could now be lying so cold, so stiff next to her on the ground. How it had all come to this.   
  
Not happy with him still being somewhat exposed, Scully removed her long, black jacket, and covered his stomach and chest, and then finally his head as well. It took every bit of strength left in her to do it, but it was only right. She'd never stare into the sparkling eyes or see the smiling face of the man she loved again.   
  
Finally, she allowed Skinner to help her up from the cold, hard ground, as he gently explained that they'd take care of him. She just nodded slightly, head down, hair hanging in her face, as Skinner guided her to the warmth of their car.   
  
He left her there, while he went to make some arrangements concerning Mulder's body, and as she sat there she felt her body begin to go numb. Though she still cried, she felt it creep from her toes to the top of her head.   
  
"God, why?" she whispered. "Why did You take him from me? Why?" But she knew the question would go unanswered, knew that she would never find the reasoning behind this. Never.   
  
She watched out the window as they picked Mulder up off the ground, and gently loaded him into the back of a newly arrived ambulance. Scully knew it was because of Skinner they treated him so, this man that they had never known, would never know.   
  
Only she knew how special he was. What the people of this Earth would be missing now that he was gone. He was her spark, her fire, her passion, and now he was gone. Successfully extinguished by the people, no, the beings, that may have sought to destroy him for so long.   
  
As the ambulance pulled away, Skinner made his way back to the car, opened Scully's door, and knelt beside her.   
  
"You're his next of kin," he said softly.   
  
"I know," she replied, barely above a whisper.   
  
"What arrangements do you want to have made? I know this is hard, Scully. But we need to know if you want an autopsy, when the funeral should be, that kind of thing."   
  
Scully nodded slightly. "No autopsy. I think it's clear what he died from. What all the others experienced. I don't want anything else done to him. And I'll take care of the funeral arrangements myself tomorrow. I'm sure my mother will help me."   
  
"Okay," Skinner said. He got up, made a quick call on his cell phone, then got in the driver's seat of the car, and headed in the same direction the ambulance had gone.   
  
"I made arrangements for a plane to fly him back to D.C.," Skinner informed Scully.   
  
She looked up abruptly.   
  
"We'll be on it, too," he said to her questioning look.   
  
"He'd want to be buried in North Carolina, with his family," she said.   
  
"I know. But we'll go back to D.C. and take it from there, okay?"   
  
Scully just nodded wearily.   
  
'This is not happening' repeated in her mind over and over. The numbness now reached her core, and she tried to empty her mind, because if she thought of him she knew she'd lose control over her emotions all over again. And she couldn't. She wouldn't. Even though she'd lost one of the most important things in her life, she still had something important to live for. Mulder wouldn't want her to give up, not because of him. He would want her to have their child, and raise it, and love it, and someday tell it of it's father. Mulder would live through the miracle that they had created. She could not give up for those very reasons, no matter how hard it was to breathe, or think, or imagine life without her precious partner. He told her to never give up, never give up on a miracle. And through his strength, she never would.   
  
The End 


End file.
